


broken waltz

by theviolonist



Category: Twilight Series - All Media Types
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-27
Updated: 2013-07-27
Packaged: 2017-12-21 13:35:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,175
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/900896
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theviolonist/pseuds/theviolonist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She's like the sister Bella never had, easy-going and mischievous, well-versed in all the girly things Bella never really cared about. (Of course there's also the rest about her: the visions and the future unwinding against her closed eyelids, her fangs, dripping blood in the crystal light.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	broken waltz

They're lying on Alice's bed when Bella asks her. "So what's it like?"

Alice rolls over on her stomach. She's like the sister Bella never had, easy-going and mischievous, well-versed in all the girly things Bella never really cared about. (Of course there's also the rest about her: the visions and the future unwinding against her closed eyelids, her fangs, dripping blood in the crystal light.) She's very beautiful, too; it's always a little disconcerting. "What do you mean?"

Bella ducks her head, embarrassed. "You and Jasper. The whole... soulmates thing."

She must sound a little bit skeptical, because Alice laughs, and "Ah," she says. " But you've got Edward, haven't you?"

Bella doesn't answer. (She does. She does have Edward, for whom her love is brutal and all-encompassing, and she still hasn't wrapped her head around it because it's impossible to understand and it sometimes feel like sometimes that's growing inside of her but doesn't belong to her, an alien appendage like wings or a malevolent tumor.)

Alice takes pity on her. She crosses her arms under her head. "It's... it's nothing like you humans have," she says with a little apologetic wince. "He's never going to leave me, tell me he doesn't love me anymore -- because that's just not possible, you know? He's... he's family."

Bella digs her back into the bed, possibly trying to make it to the other side, down there with the childhood monsters. "Yeah," she says, instead of _I wish I could have something like that_. She's not sure she does, anyway. It sounds scary. 

 

Blood is pumping at her temples. For a second she fantasizes that that's what it feels like, a jab to the heart and the thrumming electricity, adrenaline coursing through your veins at a hundred times the usual speed. It isn't, of course - she's never going to know - but still she throws her hands open, lets the wind rake her forearms and screams, the sound pushed back down her throat by the rushing air. 

Alice laughs up at her from the driver's seat, her lips purple, the beads of her necklace glistening. Bella blinks. "Having fun up there?"

Bella opens her mouth to say something, but Alice takes a sharp turn and she has to grasp the head of her seat - it knocks the breath out of her. Maybe one day Bella will ask her to take her running, like Edward does, whirring at supernatural speed between the pines and then standing on the edge of the cliff for a second, dangling as though to fall. Could be fun. (And maybe Bella sometimes dreams of falling, but it's no big deal - who's never wished they could fly?)

After they park the car half on the sidewalk Alice takes her shopping and buys her clothes Bella will never wear, glitzy dresses and vertiginous heels. Bella complies because it all feels like a dream and this is her friend, her best friend, a girl-creature with long eyelashes and a smile you can never really say no to. It's easy to forget she used to tear throats for food when she's standing like that, arms akimbo in a skimpy dresses in the middle of a shop, her head thrown back in laughter. 

They try some make-up on -- for a second the dynamic seems to shift as Alice helps her put on a glossy, bright red lipstick. Alice stares, her eyes wide as though she was going to have one of her seizures; her pupils dilate and she smirks, predatory all of a sudden. Bella doesn't step back, but her heart's thumping, and she knows Alice can hear. 

But - "Is everything okay here?" an employee asks them, heavily made-up and solicitous, and the moment is broken. 

Alice saunters back, her movements fluid and dancing. Her thumb finds Bella's bottom lip, evening out the red. "Everything's perfect," she says, her voice like a lullaby. 

 

The truth, the thing Bella will never say to anyone, is that sometimes she gets bored with the danger and the blood and the vampiric pow-wows. Sometimes she's content being seventeen and shy and awkward and lying on her belly in Alice's room, pretending Alice is a friend like any other and vaguely listening to the sounds of the piano drifting in from the living-room.

Alice has rings under her eyes: she had a vision this morning but she won't tell what, and earlier Bella saw her arguing with Jasper in front of the stairs. It's the kind of arguing that makes Bella's chest ache: their hands magnetic, eyes blazing, like they couldn't tear themselves apart long enough to breathe. Alice kept running her hands in her hair, looking lost, and when Jasper caught sight of Bella he bared his teeth at her and left.

Alice is better now, she looks less wrecked, but she looks at Bella with something strangely like caution, like she just realized how dangerous Bella really is and isn't sure she wants to get involved. Bella is sick of that look; it makes her feel like she can't control what she is, and she shouldn't be the one in this position. It's like with Edward. Just because he loves her -- but that doesn't matter. 

"You okay?" she asks Alice one more time. Her hoodie draws up, baring a thin sliver of skin at her stomach, and Alice's eyes jump to it. Bella wants to sigh - she thought they were over that, this constant hungering for her blood. 

(But - _you can't understand_ , says Edward, and he's probably right. Blood to her tastes coppery and vaguely unpleasant, and who is she to judge, anyway -)

"Yeah," Alice says. "I'm fine." 

She flops down on the bed next to Bella. Bella tries not to admire her too much so they can be friends but it's hard when she looks like that, when she moves like that and tugs her bottom lip between her teeth, her face unreadable. 

She gets the urge to ask; a pathetic human girl, sure, but Alice doesn't care, will answer anyway. So what if Bella needs the reassurance once in a while? She's human, it's her excuse. "Hey," she says softly.

Alice turns to look at her. "Hey."

"You won't -" Bella fidgets for a few moments and Alice lets her, her eyes patient. She's not a patient person. "You won't leave me, right?"

For a second it looks like Alice is going to laugh: her cheeks hollow a little and her lips thin out, her eyes flashing a little. But then she brings two fingers to Bella's cheek, curls them under her chin. When she kisses Bella it isn't entirely unexpected and Bella goes with it, opens her mouth and lets herself be surprised at the taste of strawberry and chapstick. 

Alice is smiling when she pulls away. She flops back down on the bed, opening her arms like a snow angel. "Of course not," she says, looking at Bella. "I'm your best friend."

Bella laughs along, ignoring the sick feeling that the joke might, eventually, end up being at her expense.


End file.
